A Poem About Mr Cogito

by Amanda Beth Peery

Mr Cogito is trying to make his soul more porous
like the screen door of a house in the country
letting all the air in.

Mr Cogito wants a soul like a net
catching colors & conversations, catching visions:
the singing through the door of a cathedral
on a crooked street, reaching for angels,
where he and the beggars outside understand
for the first time how to admire God
the crunch of ice in countless machines
the slush moving under boots in the street
& the thickness or click or throat-roll of consonants
in a dozen languages on the rush-hour subway
& the roar of fast traffic like the ocean
& the ocean itself breaking its rolled fists
on rocks and the deep
groaning of the earth — he heard the earth
is firmer here, it helps to hold
the skyscraper’s foundations
over its molten roll — he wants to scoop
the sounds, slick & meat-thick
out of the net of his soul
& feel the life of them in his fingers.